I'm mostly leery of giving absolute advice. When I made the attempt it was explicitly to see how I would feel about trying long form fiction without a plan, in

I'm mostly leery of giving absolute advice. When I made the attempt it was explicitly to see how I would feel about trying long form fiction without a plan, in case it felt more "right" to me. Now I know going down that path is foolish for me personally, so instead I have returned to more extensive outlines (my NaNovel outline is a list of all the scenes and an indication of which plot thread(s) they primarily touch on).